IMP Questions
Q. 1) State importance / need of load forecasting. (May 16)
a) Load forecasting is a technique used by power
companies to predict the power or energy needed to
balance the supply and load demand at all the times.
b) Accurate models for electric power load forecasting
are essential to the operation and planning of a utility
company.
c) Load forecasting helps an electric utility to make
important decisions including decisions on purchasing
and generating electric power, load switching, and
infrastructure development.
d) Load forecasts are extremely important for energy
suppliers, ISOs, financial institutions, and other
participants in electric energy generation,
transmission, distribution, and markets.
e) Short-term load forecasting can help to estimate
load flows and to make decisions that can prevent
overloading.
f) Timely implementations of such decisions lead to
the improvement of network reliability and to the
reduced occurrences of equipment failures and
blackouts.
g) The need for power varies from season to season,
day to day, and even minute to minute. To ensure that
an adequate supply of power is available to meet the
demand, there must be a plan far into the future. Load
forecasting is one of the planning processes used to
evaluate the projected load.
h) Forecasts of the load are used to decide whether
extra generation must be provided by increasing the
output of online generators, by committing one or
more extra units, or by the interchange of power with
neighboring systems.
i) Similarly, forecasts are used to decide whether the
output of an already running generation unit should be
decreased or switched off, which is determined by
generation control functions, such as scheduling, unitcommitment,
coordination, and interchange
evaluation.
j) Precise load forecasting helps the electric utility to
make unit commitment decisions, reduce spinning
reserve capacity and schedule device maintenance
plan properly.
